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Topic: swarm (Read 1672 times)

This is going to be somewhat detailed so that I can hopefully get well informed responses. On Saturday, 4/1 a friend and I caught a swarm of bees from his fathers hive in Richmond,Va. We added three brood frames (9 1/8") worth of bees and one intact brood frame (brood, honey, pollen, bees and one intact queen cell) in a brood box with the swarm. Sunday,4/2, I put a med. super on with (9) drawn comb frames and an entrance feeder. Monday afternoon,4/3, my son finds a swarm of bees on our split rail fence in the backyard. This swarm is equivalent in size to approximately 3/4 of the bees we brought back from Richmond. My other hive has no swarm cells. I checked the Richmond hive and the swarm cell that was in there is still intact. So, I caught the swarm and dumped them back in with the Richmond bees ( I felt that was where they swarmed from). Within 2 minutes the swarm is fully formed back on the split rail fence. I put them in a nuc box and added an entrance feeder and they are now content. What I can not figure out is, why would they swarm when they had honey, brood, pollen and plenty of room. Could it have been a seperate swarm from who knows where, since they vacated the hive so fast?

Swarms often dont' stay where you put them the first two or three or four or five times. Sometimes you haven't got the queen, sometimes they just haven't made up their mind yet. The causes of a hive swarming and the causes of a swarm not staying are totally unrelated. A swarm will happily stay in a box too small for all the bees to fit in most of the time.

My thought is you placed a queen cell in the hive. So this swam you got probably did have the old queen and then when inserted into the new box only to find a queen cell they think they still need to swam....... am I making sense????

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:rainbowflower: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. :rainbowflower:

It helps nothing if you put swarm back into hive. That swarm want to make new colony. That is only idea in their heds.

If you want to stop swarm ideas, lift original hive 10 feet away.

Put empty hive with foundations on old site, there queen and one brood frame. Old bees fly to old siten and move from original hive. They begin to draw foundations and forget swarming during one week. Queen continues egg laying.

Old hive has missed over half of bees and they have hard work to keep brood warm. They forget swarming.

When honey flow begin, put hives together so you get normal yield. Leave new queen and it will not swarm any more if hive has room for honey.

If you catch swarm. put hive in cool place. Swarm comes out sometimes even next day and fly ovet tree tops. Last time I put swarm hive in hot place and started to give sugar syrup. Nex day swarm came out even if there were eggs in new cells.

I would put swarms in a nuc, no more that 5 frame 9 5/8 size, free of any other frames of anything from any other hive. A liberal spritzing of honey laced sugar water seems to help in the smell department, and how. I spray all the new empty frames, the cover, the box sides, everything. The most amazing thing happens when you spray sugar water in the box.

Once the swarm has accepted their new accomodations, then I would add some frames of brood from another colony. Or you can do a combine of the nucs using the newspaper method. Suggested newspaper? Why the Wall Street Journal of course.